Spirit, Space and Survival: African American Women in Academe. - White - book reviews

Afterimage, Dec, 1994 by Judith Nicholson

Spirit, Space and Survival is an anthology by the "least institutionally empowered in academe..." Its objective is to "incorporate voices of African American women often ignored or muted in academe," the editors write in the introduction to this collection of 12 essays and 10 syllabi. The voices of the 11 women who write about their similar experiences in different disciplines speak consistently of the tension between community and academe. Whether they teach anthropology, psychology, fine arts, literature, or work as administrators, all speak of a sense of duty to further the liberation of African American communities both within and outside academe, burdened by an expectation of loyalty to hostile academic institutions.

In academe, as in the larger society of the U.S., these educators and administrators encounter lingering pathological stereotypes of unintelligent African Americans, especially women, constructed centuries ago in the name of colonization. For Elizabeth Hadley-Freyberg, graduate school was a "combat zone" because of her commitment to studying the lives of African American women, including lesbians. "The battle continues as a faculty member. Only now it has escalated," she says, and her "feeling of homelessness" in academe has intensified. Kim Vaz typifies her experience of doing fieldwork in psychology as an "excursion into madness," where her "Anglo American" supervisors denigrated their non-white and gay researchers with offensive nicknames. Some of these educators have decided that they can never be loyal to academe over their sense of duty to black communities. Joyce C. Scott admits to enjoying the "shotgun approach of a visiting artist" who can be more provocative than tenured professors.

These educators are also hopeful for change, however, and write about some of the strategies they use to fulfill their sense of duty to community and lessen the alienation of their academic lives. In a senior seminar on "Women and the State," Joy James encouraged her students to organize forums on and off campus to discuss issues they were personally grappling with, such as the status of women political prisoners. Rather than remaining a superficially objective educator, Patricia Coleman-Burns chose to side with African American students in a conflict with her university over the establishment of a department of Africana Studies. These women remain in academe because they believe that empowerment within and outside academe has been stifled by the lack of teaching by and about African Americans, and that Americans of all races have been denied access to African American history and theorizing. The structure of the collection, as well as the essays themselves, demonstrate a commitment to praxis. The three essays in "Spirit," the first section of the collection, are personal inspirational narratives about familial and community traditions that value learning. In the second section, "Space," the writers share their particular dehumanizing struggles within their institutions. The third section, "Survival," highlights strategies for transforming academe. The final section of the collection, "Syllabi and Proposals," is practical and useful. Courses are outlined, complete with reading lists, assignments, and suggested discussions.

The scholars included in Spirit, Space and Survival are not all writing about women's studies, nor do they all identify themselves as feminists, but their inclusion in this collection implies a feminist fight that others will undoubtedly benefit from. "The authors in this book seek to develop a pedagogy of transformation and empowerment, where students and teachers interchange roles, and where knowledge is the purview of all. This approach may be regarded with suspicion and may be deemed superfluous if not anarchist," the editors write in the conclusion.